For lovers of French + diehard fans of all things québécois!

A look at some French dialogue from “Les Parent” (#508)

Let’s look at some more informal French from episode 1 of Les Parent, season 5. (It’s still available on tou.tv as I write this.)

The Parent family are all seated at the table eating supper. Louis (the father) asks his youngest son Zak how his maths exam went.

Zak got a low mark on the exam, so he tries to avoid giving his father a direct answer about how he did. When Natalie (his mother) asks Zak what he got on the exam, only then does he admit how poorly he did.

Coudon is similar to “hey” or “so” in English, in that it can signal that a question is going to be asked. Sometimes it’s also spelled coudonc, but the final c isn’t pronounced.

The expression la semaine passée, or “last week,” contains the â sound in the word passée. (It sounds like pâssée.) Remember that â sounds a little like “aww.” Start listening for â so that you’ll hear just how it sounds.

Both Louis and Zak used the informal ben, which is similar to “well” in English and can serve as a filler word. It sounds like the French word bain.

Zak pronounced cet examen as c’t’examen, or like stexamen.

Both Louis and Zak pronounced correct informally as correc, without the final t.

In this conversation, tu étais was pronounced informally as t’étais, and tu as was pronounced as t’as.

The short form of mathématiques is maths or math. Although you’ll hear some people pronounce it as mats, the pronunciation mat is felt to be more correct regardless of how it’s spelled (with or without the s). Louis used the pronunciation mat.